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THE CLIENT CATALYSTS: Alan McWalter - M&S's marketing director loves the business but is realistic about what advertising should achieve

Relaxing: "By taking skiing holidays! My job is very demanding and all
my spare time is focused on the family. But I like to keep abreast of
other issues. I'm passionate about music - opera, classical, jazz and
rock. I also play the guitar."

Recent reading: The Right Stuff, by Tom Wolfe. "It's all about the
training of astronauts and the 'space race' of the 60s. It totally
intrigues me."

Favourite TV: "Anything documentary-style and drama - I loved
Morse."

Favourite all-time ad: Persil's "Someone's Mum doesn't know

... made in
1953 by J.Walter Thompson.

Dream job: "I'd love to have been a musician or a doctor, but marketing
director won in the end."

"It was an ad ahead of its time. We didn't go into it lightly; we
researched it very carefully and it made a very bold statement. But it
created a promise which Marks & Spencer couldn't live up to at the
time."

Marks & Spencer's marketing and e-commerce director, and the head of its
financial services arm, Alan McWalter, displays his trademark honesty
when discussing the retailer's return to TV advertising last year. In
the unlikely case that your memory needs a jog, the campaign featured a
larger model sprinting up a hill, divesting herself of her clothes and
shouting "I'm normal!

on reaching the top.

The spot, created by M&S's then new advertising agency, Rainey Kelly
Campbell Roalfe/Y&R, was one of the most hotly-debated ads of 2001, both
in the City and in creative departments all over Soho. Aimed at
repositioning M&S in the minds of consumers as the definitive place to
shop for clothes whatever your shape or style, the new tagline was
"Exclusively for everyone".

McWalter now concedes that, had he known then what he knows now, he
would probably not have signed off the ad, which, while causing a flurry
of headlines and a certain fascination from the public, did not have the
performance results the company so badly needed.

"The thinking behind the ad was that M&S could provide solutions for
everyone - whatever their size and shape, which would have been fine if
we had then delivered that,

he shrugs.

It also came under fire from religious groups who objected to the poster
ads featuring the naked model. "Hindsight's a wonderful thing,

he
smiles.

"If you're going to make a promise in your advertising, you've got to be
able to live up to it,

he says, although he vehemently defends the
thinking behind the campaign, and the agency which created it.

McWalter joined M&S in January from Kingfisher, coming home to roost
with his former colleague Roger Holmes, now heading M&S' entire retail
operation. Holmes is widely tipped to take over from the current chief
executive, Luc Vandervelde - the Belgian drafted in to implement a
recovery process for the chain in 2000. However, M&S has publicly
rubbished the rumours.

While Holmes has set City tongues wagging with enthusiasm, McWalter does
not enjoy the same profile. He comes under gentle fire from analysts for
his "uninspiring

presentation style and "that tricksy campaign with the
naked bird". "Perhaps it wasn't wise to remind M&S customers that they
all had big bottoms,

one opines.

But the City is also starting to be a bit more impressed by the "man
from Woolies", and welcomed the recent fourth-quarter sales which seem
to confirm M&S's undoubted recovery. The retailer has been working hard
this year, becoming one of the best performing businesses in the FTSE
100 in 2001 and reported a 20 per cent leap in half-year profits.

Warehouse's Yasmin Yusuf was brought in by Holmes to become its design
chief and the Next founder, George Davies, was also hired to work on Per
Una, M&S's ladieswear range, helping clothing sales rise by 16.5 per
cent in the 11 weeks to 30 March.

But whatever his manner with the charts and figures when talking to
those in the City, get McWalter on to the subject of advertising, and
his eyes light up, according to those in the business who have worked
with him.

"He's a thoroughbred marketer. He listens, understands and is very
creatively-minded. And he's not a control freak,

one says. "He's
methodical - a plodder - and has risen to the challenge at M&S with
aplomb,

another says, adding that it would be no great surprise if M&S
was McWalter's last port of call in his career voyage.

Those qualities were shown when he started in January by calling an
immediate review and appointed RKCR/Y&R as M&S's above-the-line agency
and Walker Media to handle the media side in March. His swiftness to act
so soon came from what he, and other senior management, saw as a need to
inject consistency into M&S's rather muddled messages: "The company had
projected itself in so many different ways. We needed to consolidate and
link those messages together. Previously we'd been working with a range
of agencies, and it showed in our marketing activity,

he remembers.

"When I joined the business, it was in a very different shape than it is
now, and it was struggling with two things. One was a denial to face the
real issues it was facing, but the second was more positive - a desire
to embrace new ways to get us out of the mire we were in.

He admits
being the 'new boy' was quite scary: "M&S had never had a marketing
director before, and I was this strange, new animal, bringing a new
discipline which was both intriguing and questionable for some people at
the time,

he smiles.

McWalter's years heading marketing at the Kingfisher-owned Woolworths
have made him an experienced, if low-profile, expert in getting the most
out of agencies. And in spite - and perhaps as a result - of his earlier
frankness about RKCR/Y&R's inaugural work, and the consequent raising of
that profile, he claims the relationship between client and agency is
sound and healthy.

"I've always had a belief that you should look at an agency as being a
part of your business; a part which works with you in a co-ordinated way
and is part of your metabolism. When we appointed RKCR/Y&R, it was
because it demonstrated a very sound understanding of the brand - an
empathy with the brand - and it has been able to translate that into
creative solutions which we've used to good advantage,

he stresses.

Since it started working on the account, McWalter claims, the agency has
demonstrated all the attributes clients are after: "The amount of time,
passion, enthusiasm and, no doubt, frustration, that the team there has
invested has been substantial, and I think the results are the
consequence of that."

The agency has also worked on various campaigns for M&S's food offering,
as well as the current "perfect

press and poster work, as part of a
strategy to keep customers' minds focused on what M&S does well.

The strapline? "Fashion with function. It's what we do best". The TV
work - and the strategy of keeping M&S a core destination store - was
continued at Christmas with a celebrity-packed spot, starring Zoe
Ball.

"It is critically important for M&S to be confident, front-foot and
visible at Christmas. That ad achieved that with sparkle,

McWalter
argues.

He was rewarded with a better-than-usual Christmas season, with sales
rising by another 9 per cent in the seven weeks to 12 January this
year.

What with the signing of David Beckham to promote a line of menswear,
McWalter admits that celebrity endorsement is a useful tool for a brand,
especially when it comes to above-the-line advertising.

"The brand has always had a relationship with celebrities - we want to
build partnerships with those who show a natural affinity with M&S and
demonstrate the kind of lifestyle which is appropriate to our core
target consumers."

But it's not just high-profile above-the-line campaigns which get
McWalter excited. He's a firm fan of direct marketing, the use of
publications and sponsorship - but they must be used in the right way
and at the right time.

"One of the things I wanted to do was to get absolute clarity in what
M&S stood for and how we could drive product excellence in each of the
business areas,

he says, keen to assert the importance of using the
right marketing tools for each one.

The decision to use a PR approach for the launch of per una was right,
McWalter says, because its target audience of fashion-conscious women
are hungry to pick up style messages from the press. "There are some
areas of our business which are better served by other marketing tools
than above-the-line advertising."

Although McWalter won't reveal details, he admits the company has been
reviewing its policy on loyalty cards - tools used mercilessly by M&S's
rivals and now seen as a proactive inevitability. "In the early 90s,
when others were developing loyalty schemes, M&S was flying. It didn't
need them. The market, consumers and the competition have changed
since.

He claims that M&S's customer relation management is as
sophisticated as any of its rivals.

He explains that the company's sponsorship of the Great Britain Olympic
team was dropped in November last year because, well, M&S couldn't
afford it. "As we went through the recovery programme, we had to be
careful about controlling our costs and be discerning about what we
did."

McWalter admits a tough part of his job is to continue convincing a
company, which had never used advertising before - and has in the past
prided itself on that fact - to keep on funding it. "I'm ultimately
responsible for the health of the brand. I'm accountable. M&S isn't the
easiest organisation to work for, but we come up with the sound and
solid reasons as to why this should happen,

he argues.

And despite his obvious love of the ad business, he's realistic about
how others, particularly M&S shareholders, regard the role of marketing
and advertising. "I'm a shareholder of this company, as well as others,
and I'm interested in what value the management team create for us. Good
advertising changes people's perceptions of organisations and brands,
and builds confidence and trust,

he stresses.

"But I certainly don't think shareholders invest in a company because of
its advertising. The issue here is whether the management is using the
advertising wisely to develop the business, to reinforce the brand and
obviously, sell the product. It's simple - any company which is doing
that well and consistently, using advertising as a powerful vehicle to
help in the process, is increasing shareholder value."

His CV points to a man who's had a long career in a retail environment
which now is probably nothing like the one he joined in 1987 when he
took a job at the electronics firm Ferguson. Before that were jobs at
Spillers Food and Unilever and a degree in biochemistry from London
University.

After Ferguson, McWalter moved to Comet, where he became the marketing
and development director, and then on to Kingfisher to a top job as the
marketing director at Woolworths.

So, working in a business sector noted for increasing competitiveness
and consolidation, how does he view the advertising industry - itself
grappling with those very issues? After all, at the time he appointed
RKCR as M&S's UK creative hotshop, the agency was finishing a deal with
Young & Rubicam which would make it part of a global network and
subsequently part of WPP.

"From a client's perspective, it's important to ask what consolidation
brings. If the answer is scale, resource, talent and a cost advantage,
then of course, it's a bonus. If it comes at the expense of focus or
understanding, I'd seek to question it."

Although firmly wedded to the network agency, he continues to salute the
UK's independent agencies. "They're a good reflection of the flux taking
place in the market,

he says of Campaign's agency of the year, Mother.
"They're bringing new ideas and creativity, but aside from all that, are
proving that client service is also at the heart of what they do - just
look at the ones which shop there